Vale Tom Daintry (1911 - 2002)

I was saddened to hear this week of the
death of Tom Daintry
who
was one of our 4 founders. Tom was born in 1911 and had an athletic
career covered over 70 years of active competition.

In 1925, he started his career as a
sprinter when he was 14
at
the South Sydney Athletic Club. One day he was induced by the club's
walking
champion to walk in the club's championship to make help up the field.
After ten minutes instruction he went out and beat his teacher in the
one
and three mile walks.

After this early success, he never
looked back. At 15 years
of
age he won the New South Wales Junior championship and repeated this
for
the next 2 years. When he was 18, he represented NSW in the Australian
Championships held in Melbourne at the MCG in 1930. He met with stiff
opposition
in the form of Bert Gardiner and Horace Wilson from South Australia.
But
by setting a cracking pace on the early laps, he was able to burn off
the
opposition. Bert Gardiner recalled the event: "I remember that well as
I was disqualified when in the lead with South Aussie, Horrie Wilson,
and
he was also scrubbed. As we were under the world record on the third
lap,
we probably deserved it.

In the late 1930s, as Australia was
still in a world wide
depression, Tom headed to the north of New South Wales to seek
employment. With no competition or training facilities, Tom assisted in
the formation of a club at Kyogle. But for top competition, Tom had to
go to Brisbane each year and finally he made the move there. He then
won all the Queensland Walking Championships for 23 years plus 2
marathon runs.

Business reasons again dictated a
relocation and in 1956 he
moved
to Melbourne. It gave him a chance to compete in the trials for the
Olympic Games. Unfortunately due to lack of training and the building
of a factory, he failed to gain an Olympic berth.

It was at this time that he joined the
Victorian Amateur
Walking
Club and quickly became one of our leading walkers. He was club captain
for many years and his association with this club covered over 30 years
as an athlete and club leader.

Tom was one of the main workers who
helped build the Alf
Robinson
Hall at Albert Park in the early sixties. Being a tradesman, he did
much
of the work to lay the wooden floor.

In 1967, he built the partitioning to
extend the male
change-rooms
in Robinson Hall. When major renovations were done in 1976, it was Tom
once again who did the timberwork for an extra dressing room.

I first met Tom when I started race
walking in 1965. In those
days
Tom was already over 50 years of age but was still a fine walker and
regularly shared the weekly style award with Bob Gardiner. My first
Victorian representation was in 1973 when I made the Victorian team for
the Australian 50 km championships in Queensland. Tom was the team
captain - at over 60 years of age. I am not aware of anyone
representing their state at such an age. It was a great privilege to
have had him as a team leader.

Tom is one of the very few athletes who
represented 3 states.

The Tom Daintry Trophy was instituted
by Athletics Victoria
in
1976 and is awarded annually to the best A. V. Under 14 First Year girl
walker.

In the early 1970's Tom was one of 4
walkers who decided to
start
an Australian Chapter of the Centurions club. The 4 founders put up the
money for the initial medallions and got the ball rolling. Tom was keen
to become a Centurion himself and he tried on several occasions during
the
early seventies. He got to the 70+ mile mark but age was against him
and
he failed. It was a great disappointment for him. No doubt he would
have
done it easily in his prime.

Tom worked in the wood industry and the
Centurion Honour
Board
hanging in the VRWC clubrooms is a fine example of his work. It was
hand
crafted by Tom as a fitting medium for recording Centurion membership.
The fine ingrained woods belie the fact that Tom was over 80 years of
age
when he produced it.

As the Veteran Athletics movement
gained momentum, Tom turned
his
thoughts to it and set new world standards in each age division as he
worked
his way up through the age groups. At one stage, the Master Age Record
Book showed Tom holding 16 world records for various distances from
5000m
to 50 km. He travelled to a number of World Veteran Championships and
regularly won his age group in convincing fashion.

Even now, many years later, many of his
records still stand.
The
following examples show his astonishing achievements at the Veteran
levels:

5000m Track

Men 65-69
Men
70-74
Men
75-79

25:44
26:49
28:02

10000m

Men 70-74
Men
75-79
Men
80-84

54:17
64:39
64:39

In the many years he competed, he was
disqualified once. To
quote
Tom "The only disappointment in my sporting life was the only
time
I was disqualified by an ex-rival when only one judge was required to
disqualify.
I represented Queensland in the Australian Championships in New South
Wales.
He had spread the word two weeks beforehand that I and Don Keane would
be put out. Which he did in the first 50 metres."

However, the doyen of Australian
athletics, Bert Gardiner,
himself
a great walker, rated Tom Daintry as the best stylist who ever won an
Australian Championship. You cannot get any higher recommendation. For
his services to racewalking in Victoria Tom was made a life member of
the Victorian Race Walking Club in 1990.

In the early 1990's, Tom moved back to
Queensland with Betty
to
be with his family. It was a great loss to Victorian walking as he had
spent the last 40 years competing as a Victorian. He died quietly in
the
early morning hours of 4 September 2002, aged 91 years. For those of us
in ‘his’ club, it is a great loss. Tom was not only an inspirational
walker
and a wonderful coach and motivator, he was a gentleman in every sense
of the word.